Bus service to Purdy expanding

This week Kitsap Transit will expand its service connecting with Pierce Transit in Purdy, a service that has helped change the face of inter-city bus travel here.

Kitsap Transit has been making the Purdy connections for some time. In fact, Jim Harmon, a spokesman for Cascade Trailways, says that service contributed to the demise of the coach service Cascade Trailways had provided for the Kitsap Peninsula.

His company's service was at its peak around 1979-80, Harmon said, when it served hundreds with seven daily runs into Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, plus midday runs between Tacoma and Bremerton.

Kitsap Transit was voted into being in 1982 and it has been downhill since, said Harmon. Cascade ended its Kitsap County-Tacoma connections on Jan. 24.

Kitsap Transit's fares are lower, its buses more austere. They run more frequently and require at least one transfer. They cover part of their costs from tax money.

John Clauson, Kitsap Transit's service development manager, said his agency on Tuesday will add four roundtrips from Port Orchard to Purdy to the 11 made already. They will match the 15 stops at the Purdy park-and-ride that Pierce Tr`nsit makes each day. Not all go to Tacoma, though. Some go to Key Center.

Clauson said three of the morning runs and three in the afternoon will be express trips to and from Tacoma Community College.

And Clauson said Kitsap Transit isn't the bad guy in the ending of Cascade Trailways service here.

"In reality, in 1982, when we were voted in, we purchased the rights to that service from Cascade Trailways, so they were compensated for any loss of business."

Then Kitsap Transit allowed Cascade to keep making the runs until the company terminated it on its own, he said.

Kitsap Transit also makes inter-county connections with Jefferson Transit in Poulsbo and Mason Transit in Bremerton.

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